Two Ways of Knowing

Goal: After this lesson you can compare how Indigenous storytelling and Western science describe the same plant. Subject: English Language Arts | Run time: about 6 minutes

Quick recall

Last time we looked at biopiracy and benefit-sharing. Two quick questions. One: how big is the global market for traditional medicine? Large, with estimates ranging from about 70 billion to 233 billion dollars a year. Two: what does fair benefit-sharing pay the growers, compared to the plain commodity rate? More than the commodity rate, so the value flows back to the community.

Why this matters

Here is a strange idea. Two people can look at the exact same plant and describe it in two completely different languages of knowing. One reaches for a creation story. The other reaches for a list of compounds. Both are talking about guayusa. Both are right. And learning to hold both at once is a real skill.

The idea

Start with the story. The Achuar people of the Amazon carry a creation narrative about how guayusa came to be (Lewis et al., 2003). In the telling, there is darkness first. Then divine tears fall, and where they land, the first guayusa trees grow. People awaken through dreams, and the plant becomes the bridge that carries them between worlds (Lewis et al., 2003). Notice what that story does. It treats dreams as a knowledge technology, a real tool for learning, not just sleep. And it treats the plant as a relationship between the spiritual world and the everyday one. That is a way of knowing. It is built from narrative, image, and dream. Now hear the other language. A scientist describes guayusa as caffeine, theobromine, and L-theanine, a set of measurable compounds you can name and weigh. That is also a way of knowing. It is built from measurement and category. Here is where it gets interesting. The Indigenous leader Patricia Gualinga answers the scientist directly. She says, "Wayusa is not just caffeine and theobromine and L-theanine. Wayusa is relationship" (Gualinga, 2019). Read that closely. She does not argue inside the science. She does not say the compounds are wrong. Instead she steps outside the whole frame and dissolves its categories. This is a rhetorical move called framework rejection. Rather than playing the game on the science's terms, she changes what the game is about. The plant, she says, is not a thing with parts. It is a relationship.

Picture it

Picture two people standing in front of one guayusa tree at dawn. One sees a story written into the leaves: tears that became trees, dreams that wake the world. The other sees a chemical label: three compounds, neatly measured. Same tree. Two ways of knowing. The skill is to stand in both spots at once and not flatten either one.

Remember this

The fact to carry out: the Achuar creation narrative knows guayusa through story and dream, treating dreams as a knowledge technology (Lewis et al., 2003), while Western science knows it through measured compounds, and Gualinga's line "Wayusa is relationship" rejects the scientific frame rather than arguing inside it (Gualinga, 2019). More than one valid way to know a plant can be true at the same time.

Quick check

Quick check. When Gualinga says "Wayusa is relationship," is she correcting the science or doing something else? She is doing something else: she steps outside the scientific frame and dissolves its categories, a move called framework rejection (Gualinga, 2019).

Key Takeaways

The Achuar creation narrative tells of darkness, then divine tears that become the first guayusa trees, with humans awakening through dreams (Lewis et al., 2003).
That narrative treats dreams as a knowledge technology and the plant as a bridge between worlds (Lewis et al., 2003).
Western science describes the same plant as caffeine, theobromine, and L-theanine, a set of measured compounds.
Gualinga's "Wayusa is relationship" is a framework rejection: it dissolves the science's categories instead of arguing within them (Gualinga, 2019).
More than one valid way to know a plant can be true at once.

Sources

Gualinga, P. (2019). Statements on traditional knowledge and plant medicine.
Lewis, W. H., Kennelly, E. J., Bass, G. N., Wedner, H. J., Elvin-Lewis, M. P., & Fast, D. M. (2003). Ritualistic use of the holly Ilex guayusa by Amazonian Jivaro Indians. Journal of Ethnopharmacology, 33(1-2), 25-30.